ProjectFlash: The Arcade Chronicles
by marioandsonicFTW
Summary: A series of one-shots and short stories about Flash's new life as a playable character. It's got humor! It's got drama! It's got a stinkbrain! It's got glitches! It's got everything! (probably)
1. Never Be Afraid

**Welcome back! Didn't take me very long to come up with a one-shot to start things off. Anyways, before starting, I just wanted to make note of a few things. First off, I'm taking suggestions for short stories to put here on this series. If you want to pitch an idea, just PM me and we'll figure things out. We could do a collab if you're up for it. Plus, credit will be given to you. Next thing that I want to say is that Flash found a way to connect to the internet from Game Central and now he has a Tumblr with Nega. So if you want to ask a question to either of them or just say hi, a link to his Tumblr is on my profile. That pretty much wraps things up so, Enjoy!**

* * *

Light was very dim within a dark room. There seemed to be nothing within it except for the dim glow of purple coming from gaps between charcoal black tiles, that covered the floor, walls, and ceiling. A cyan hedgehog by the name of Flash was lying on the floor unconscious until he began to wake up.

"...Ugh...My head..." He groaned. "...What hit me?"

Flash steadily picked himself up and got to his feet. As the headache he was suffering began to subside, he surveyed his surroundings.

"Where am I?" He asked himself.

_"Inside your mind."_ A voice answered.

Flash jolted in shock. "Wh-Who said that?" He called.

_"Me."_

Out of the darkness came a dark purple hedgehog with likeness to Flash, except his quills pointed upwards and his eyes were empty, with no pupils and had an eerie glow.

"Who...are you?" Flash asked.

_"Me? I'm you."_ The answer was heard, yet the dark hedgehog didn't speak.

"What? No! That's crazy! There's no way that you're me!"

_"Of course I am. The accident merely brought me out to the surface. I'm everything Negative that you're too weak to be. And thanks to Eggman siphoning energy out of you with his mind control ray, I was able to gain enough energy to take control of your body."_ He said, telepathically.

A light shined on one of the walls, revealing a kind of window. Through the window was a vision of the inside of a light blue container. Suddenly, a hand appeared and shot a purple laser, destroying the container. The window was showing everything through Flash's eyes, except Flash wasn't in control of his body. The dark hedgehog was in control and he made the body fly out of the container, showing that Flash was in a power plant at the Asteroid Coaster. The so-called negative version of Flash started shooting lasers around the plant, causing destruction and chaos.

"Hey! Give me back my body!" Flash demanded.

_"You want your body? You'll have to beat me to get it back, weakling."_

* * *

"Cool! A boss battle!"

A young boy was playing the new content in the "updated" version of Sonic Colors, which was on its first day. He progressed a bit into the story and has been playing for about 20 minutes. The game screen showed a short introduction screen with the camera panning around the room with Nega Flash's name introducing him to the gamer. The room that the characters were in shifted into a large endless hallway, Nega flew off in one direction, Flash ran after him and the battle began.

About an hour later, the arcade was nearing its closing time. The handful of gamers that were left were finishing up the games they had started and Mr. Litwak was closing down the snack bar.

"Alright, kids. Time to wrap it up!" He announced.

A few groans of disappointment sounded, followed by some 8-bit "Game Over" fanfare. The gamers left out the door and Mr. Litwak made a few final checks and precautions before exiting the building and locking the door tight.

* * *

Flash was in the middle of a result screen after having just finished an Act in Sweet Mountain. Given that he had a view outside the screen, he knew it was safe to leave since no one was around.

"Arcade's closed, guys!" Flash shouted with much excitement and satisfaction.

He had just finished his first day of being a real character and, for him, it was an experience he will always remember. The entire day, every one of the gamers wanted to play as him. Not one of the other characters were picked to be played as, not even Sonic. Flash ran offscreen and made his way toward the Egg Shuttle back to Tropical Resort. The entire way there, Flash was laughing and smiling. He was feeling like his heart was so light that he could float off the ground. Passing by the many giant lollipops and cake-covered pathways, he had finally arrived at the station for the shuttle and boarded. The shuttle then began to fly off to the resort.

"Nega, you've been in here almost all day. I thought you would want to get out at the very first chance. Come on out." Flash encouraged.

No one answered.

"Uh...Nega?" Flash called.

_"Huh? Oh! Sorry."_ Nega's voice replied.

Flash began to crackle and spark cyan until his entire body was nothing but binary and pixels. Some of the pixels turned white and split off from the cyan. Both sets of scrambled pixels settled into two separate hedgehogs, Flash and Nega, using Flash's origin model.

"Can you believe it, Nega? We're both finally real characters!" Flash cheerfully remarked, spinning around with his arms outstretched as if he was absorbing the light.

Nega, however, didn't seem to be very thrilled. In fact, he looked as if something was bothering him. He sat down in one of the passenger seats, looking down at his white sneakers and the steel ground, turning his mind away from the present time.

"You know, maybe the name 'Nega' might be a little awkward to use. How about if I call you just 'N'?" He asked. Flash then looked over at him, noticing his somber expression.

"Nega? What's wrong?" He asked.

Nega snapped back to reality for the second time, lifting his head to look at Flash.

"What? Nothing! Nothing's wrong! I mean, yeah. We are real characters and N sounds like a nice name." He tried to play it off.

"Hey. It's okay." Flash reassured as he sat down next to him. "You can tell me about it. What's on your mind?"

"Um...I don't know if I wanna talk about it." Nega said as he looked away from Flash with his ears folding flat.

"Are you feeling okay? Is it about the virus?" Flash asked, concerned about his twin.

"Well, sort of." Nega replied, warming up to answer. "It's...about you and...me."

"What about us?"

"I just feel like, maybe...later along the line, you might become...scared or afraid...of me."

"N, what makes you think that?" Flash wanted to know.

"Well...I know how scared you were of the virus when he came around and tried to destroy the arcade, since, in a way, I was there, watching through his eyes. I could see the fear in your eyes. And...now, since we have to fight each other in boss battles and I'm programmed to act practically the same as 821...I'm worried that...you might look at me the same way, outside of the game. And I don't want to lose my little brother."

"N, don't be silly." Flash said, smiling. "I'll never look at you the same way I did with the virus. You're nothing like him. And don't worry about when we have to fight. I mean, it's just a game and it's all in good fun for the gamers. At the end of the day, you'll still be my big brother."

These words were reassuring to N. He was happy to know that Flash wouldn't be scared of him and that he actually looks up to him like a brother, even though the just met each other the day before, during the whole virus fiasco.

"Never forget it." Flash said.

The shuttle slowed to a stop as it descended on the Tropical Resort station. The doors opened, allowing the two to exit.

"Now, come on! Let's go meet up with the others!"

"Hehe. Right behind you." N chuckled.

_"N, huh? That is a pretty cool name."_ He thought.


	2. Author's Note

Hey everyone! Glad you enjoyed the story I just want to make a note that both stories that come after ProjectFlash have already been published on my profile, so look them up if you want.


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